poker questions...

my background: played poker online for 2 years. have played on several sites (stars, party, paradise, bodog, pacific), mainly NLHE SNGs at $10. ROI of 17%.

i am NOT looking at it (poker) as a career. i've read HOH (all), sklansky's earlier ones, SS 1/2, and some other assorted books. i've also watched a bunch of live at the bike (no longer new shows), knowing that some of those players are quite loose.

my questions:
-> do you find that the games are getting tougher? if so, is that the expected future path? as noted, i'm doing fine, but based on what i had read a while ago (about how loose things were online), expected to crush the games more than i'm doing.
-> at what level does the SNG games get very tough? i'd guess 30+, but that's why i'm asking you all.
-> what level cash games (NL or omaha ) will be juicy, yet be the best for me, who has sparingly played cash?

tks for any thoughts.

More...

Games have gotten much harder relatively speaking. Gone are the dream days of Party Pokers fish fest where if you were good, winning 4BB/100 was common place. Since last Oct. there has been a notable shift (coinciding with the anti-online leislation).

For Americans table selection is key,as our online choices became muc more limited. Even the best (so I hear) are only 2BB/100.

Again, as play has gotten harded, better players are playing lower limits. At $20 sitngo you will notice an increase in the level of play. This also applies to cash games, where as before 3-6 nl was a joke, it now plays like 10-20 did a year ago. 1-2 is like 3-6. At $.25-$.50 I guess is still very fishy.

Thats the bad news. The good news is that live play is still incredibly juicy! The basic belief (which I agree with) is that if youre a winning $10 sitngo online, then you probably will do very well at $100-$150 live. If you are beating $.25-$.50 NL online that equates to a $2-4 NL winner live!

Me too. IMO poker and trading (not investing) go hand in hand. I played poker professionally (online, part-time) for two years before being turned to trading. Never played very high-- but more than enough for a college student.

i lost AA to 4 7 after tripping up on the flop.. worst beat ever.. flop comes A 6 7. this guy goes all in. I call. turn is a 5. river 3// how bad can it get?

More...

You ain't seen nothin Embrace the bad beats. Idiots getting lucky occasionally are the only reason they stay around for you to take their money later. If there were no bad beats, online poker would be dry as a desert.